2021 New Georges Jam

Raquel Almazan is an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator and activist whose eclectic career spans performance, playwriting, devising and dramaturgy.  Her work has been featured in New York City, including Off-Broadway, throughout the United States, and internationally in Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala and Sweden; including several of her plays within the Latin is America (play cycle), writing bi-lingual plays in dedication to each Latin American country.  She is a practitioner of Butoh Dance and a creator/teacher of arts programs for youth/adults, focusing on social justice. Professional Development residencies with Eugene O’Neill Center Playwrights Conference and The Playwrights’ Center. Recipient of the NALAC Arts Grant; Kennedy Center’s Latinidad Award for her play CAFÉ; the Kate Neal Kinley Playwriting Fellowship; and the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Playwriting Prize. She is Artistic Director of La Lucha Arts, dedicated to producing works in collaboration with social movements. M.F.A. Playwriting: Columbia University. she/her/they

Cristina Angeles is an Afrolatina director, writer, and theatermaker whose mission is to create empathy and conversation by directing new plays, musicals, and socially conscious adaptations of classics that place women of color at the forefront. Cristina is the Founding Artistic Director of Checkmark Productions, an NYC-based company dedicated to artists of color and the telling of their stories, an Associate Artist at Roundabout Theatre Company, and a Drama League Directing Fellow. Previously, she has participated in the Roundabout Directing Fellowship, the Williamstown Directing Corps, the SDCF Observership Program, and as an assistant director on and off Broadway. Select credits include Dream Hou$e by Eliana Pipes (2019 Leah Ryan Prize, 2019 O’Neill Finalist) directed by Cristina at Ars Nova’s ANT Fest; and TONI, a digital series inspired by the life of Marie Antoinette, written and directed by Cristina.  she/her

Lyndsey Bourne is a queer Canadian playwright and teacher and a birth/abortion doula working with The Doula Project. Her plays have been developed with The Tank, Dixon Place, La Mama, The Joust Theatre Company, The Barn Arts Collective, Judson Church, Brooklyn College, Playwrights Horizons Downtown and Ars Nova. She was a 2019 Resident artist at The Barn Arts Collective and Judson Church. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and a 2020 NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theater Grant recipient. Her choral play I Was Unbecoming Then is featured on the 2020 Kilroys list. She teaches playwriting at Playwrights Horizons Theater School (NYU). MFA, Brooklyn College. she/they

Lydia Blaisdell holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and is an alumnus of Youngblood at EST. Her baboon matriarchy piece DEATH MATCH: Queen vs. Queen, will have a workshop directed by Shawn Sides and featuring the Rude Mechs whenever folks can gather safely again. Her solo work about her great-grandmother, She Buried the Pistol, was part of the WOW Festival at La Jolla Playhouse in October 2019. She received a Visionary Playwright Commission from Theater Masters in 2018.  Bear Eats Bear, her immersive apocalyptic audio piece, has toured to Toronto, Brooklyn, Charlotte, Minneapolis, and Austin, TX. Lydia has been granted residencies at Yaddo, Marble House Project, and Ucross. When not dreaming up theatrical works, Lydia is the Residency Program Director at I-Park.  she/her

Sarah Einspanier‘s plays include Lunch Bunch (happening *AGAIN* some / one day with PlayCo and Clubbed Thumb; Clubbed Thumb’s Winterworks and Summerworks), House Plant (New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door), I LOVE SEAN (Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow), The Convent of Pleasure (Cherry Lane’s Mentor Project), and MADONNA col BAMBINO created with composer Deepali Gupta and director Caitlin Sullivan (Ars Nova’s ANT Fest and the New Ohio’s Ice Factory, curated by New Georges). Sarah’s work has also been developed and presented by Ars Nova’s Play Group, Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group, The New Georges Jam (current co-leader), and Williamstown Theatre Festival’s Directing Studio. Sarah has been a resident at the Millay Colony, Cape Cod Theatre Project (Noel Coward Foundation Writer in Residence), SPACE on Ryder Farm, Sewanee Writers’ Conference (Horton Foote Scholar), and Erik Ehn’s annual Texas Silent Writing Retreat. Sarah teaches at the National Theater Institute.

Estefanía Fadul is a Colombian-American director and producer. Recent projects: Carla’s Quince created with The Voting Project, Zoom Intervention by Noelle Viñas (Weston Playhouse, NYTimes Critics’ Pick), Christina Quintana’s Azul (Southern Rep) and Scissoring (INTAR), The Same Day by Stefan Ivanov (Sfumato Theatre, Bulgaria), Agent 355 by Preston Max Allen and Jessica Kahkoska (Chautauqua, MTF), Pranayama by James Anthony Tyler (Julliard), and Óye Oyá by Rebecca Martínez & Rodolfo Ortega (Milagro). Estefanía is the inaugural recipient of New York Stage and Film’s Pfaelzer Award, and an alumna of the O’Neill National Directors Fellowship, Drama League Directors Project, Foeller Fellowship at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Van Lier Fellowship at Repertorio Español, NALAC Leadership Institute, and Civilians’ R&D Group. Member: Drama League Directors Council, Latinx Theatre Commons advisory committee, and Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab. SDC. BA: Vassar College.  she/her

Deepali Gupta is a neurodivergent performance artist, composer, and writer. She makes work which regards themes of madness and illucidity in relation to the feminine and colonized body, with particular emphasis on somatic understandings. Her song has been described as a “stark and haunting plunge.” Her work has been presented by Ars Nova, The Public Theater, LCT3, and The Poetry Project, among other venues. She is an Affiliated Artist with Target Margin Theater, and a member of the New Georges Jam; and is currently developing commissions for JACK and Ars Nova.  she/they

Emily Gardner Xu Hall is a composer, lyricist, playwright and actor who writes feminist musicals and plays with music inclusive to people of colour. For her music, lyrics, and book, she won the 2019 American Theatre Wing Jonathan Larson Award and the 2018 “Go Write A Musical” Lilly Award with mentorship from Stacey Mindich. Music/lyrics/book: Cherry Orchard, Cymbeline, Mei-Do (Ars Nova ANT Fest), Nascent Phase (Bushwick Starr Reading Series), Untitled Chongqing Musical (commission from Atlantic Theater Company). Composer/lyricist or composer: Nomad Motel (Off-Broadway premiere, Atlantic Theater Company), Black is Beautiful… (Public Theater Under the Radar Festival), Ruth (Goodman Theatre Playwrights’ Unit), The Cardinal (commission, Cornerstone Theatre Company). Member of Page 73 Interstate 73 Writers’ Group, and the BMI Advanced workshop. BA Music and English, Wellesley College; MFA, NYU Graduate Acting.  she/her

Amina Henry‘s productions include P.S. (Ars Nova), The Animals, Ducklings, Hunter John and Jane and The Johnsons (all at JACK, Brooklyn, NY), Bully (SUNY Purchase, Clubbed Thumb WinterWorks, and elsewhere), The Great Novel (New Light Theater) and Troy (HERO Theatre). Her work has been produced, presented at, and/or developed by: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The New Group, Ars Nova, Page 73, The Flea, National Black Theatre, HERO Theater, Project Y Theatre, Dixon Place, The Cell and other venues. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and 2018-2019 Audrey Residency recipient. She is a recipient of the 2020 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Sarah Verdone Award.  she/her

Kimille Howard is a director, deviser, writer and filmmaker. She’s an Assistant Stage Director at the Metropolitan Opera and recently worked on the new production of Porgy and Bess; and the newly appointed Artistic Director of the Lucille Lortel Theatre’s NYC Public High School Playwriting Fellowship. Select directing credits: In The Open by Mona Monsour (WCSU), Soil Beneath by Chesney Snow (Primary Stages/59E59), $#!thole Country Clapback by Pascale Armand (Loading Dock Theatre), The Fellowship Plays (Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation), and Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau (TheatreSquared).  Her work has also been seen at EST, Cherry Lane Theatre, NBT, The Circle in the Square Theatre Circle Series, The Flea, The Lark, JAGFest, and NYU, among others. Broadway: Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations (Assistant Director). Recent Fellowships: New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellowship and the Manhattan Theatre Club Jonathan Alper Directing Fellowship. Participant in New York Stage and Film’s inaugural NYSAF NEXUS project. she/her

Sarah Hughes is a director & producer. She makes live performances of all kinds: new plays, VR pieces, devised work, Zoom concerts, hybrid new media projects. Recent collaborators include Julia May Jonas, MJ Kaufman, Julia Izumi, Sunita Prasad, Eliza Bent, Zarina Shea, and Carl Holder, and her work has been programmed at The Bushwick Starr, Abrons Arts Center, and the New Ohio, among others.  As a producer she’s developed pieces with artists & institutions such as Sibyl Kempson, MoMA, Half Straddle, Tribeca Film Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, and The New York Times.  Sarah was a longtime company member with Elevator Repair Service, is an Affiliated Artist of New Georges and Target Margin Theater, and is an alum of the WP Theater Directors Lab, the O’Neill National Directors Fellowship, Clubbed Thumb’s Directing Fellowship, and The Civilians’ R&D Lab.  She has taught at Dartmouth College & NYU, and was recently named Director of Artistic Programming at Theatre Row, where she created the Kitchen Sink Residency.  she/her

Romana Isabella is a playwright, performer and producer with roots in Ukraine and Argentina. Their plays include HYENA!, which they performed at La MaMa, the International Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the United Solo Festival (winner of “Best Experimental Show”) and Martyrs, which premiered in La MaMa’s Spring 2018 Season. Romana is also a 2017 Fellow of the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, and you can hear their voice in BRIC Radio’s In This Economy? and in Dungeon & Drama Nerds’ upcoming season of Paranoia. they/them

Abigail Jean-Baptiste is a theater maker and director based in her hometown of NYC.  A Lilly Award winner of the New York Women’s Foundation Directing Apprenticeship Award, Abigail is interested in projects that abstract the

past, intersect with critical race theory, and move us toward Black femme liberation. She’s currently a part of the Roundabout Director’s Group, 2020-21 Bushwick Starr Reading Series and Classic Stage Company Associate Board. Abigail is a visiting artist for Princeton University’s Lewis Center of the Arts, where she coordinates a BIPOC Theater Makers Group. Previously she has collaborated with Soho Rep., Audible Theater, McCarter Theater, Wet Paint Festival, and Point Made Films. Abigail has acted as assistant director to Lileana Blain-Cruz, Sam Gold, Saheem Ali, Diane Paulus and John Doyle. Artists she develops work with include David Ryan Smith, Anna Zabel, Tyehimba Jess, Nicole Acheampong, Mia Fowler and Rachel Calnek-Sugin. B.A., Princeton University. she/her

Julia May Jonas is a writer, multi-disciplinary artist, and educator. She is the author of ALL LONG TRUE AMERICAN STORIES, a 5-play cycle reimagining canonical American-masculinity plays that will premiere at The Bushwick Starr, co-produced by New Georges, in 2021. Other plays include Your Own Personal Exegesis, Evelyn, Emily Climbs (Machine Méchant), and Time and Motivation for Fitness. Her work has been presented/developed with The Bushwick Starr, New Georges, Ars Nova, NACL, PHTS, Great Plains Theatre Conference, PRELUDE, Incubator Arts Center, PS122, HERE Arts Center, Hubbard Hall, and others. She has been granted support by NYSCA, The Venturous Theater Fund,  the NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre, The Rockefeller Foundation and The Mental Insight Foundation. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Nellie Tinder, and Co-Leader of The New Georges Jam.  she/her

Kedian Keohan is a director, performer, and producer of live performance. They have collaborated with artists Erin Markey, Ann Marie Dorr & Paul Ketchum, minor theater, Geoff Sobelle, Andrew Schneider, Dance Heginbotham, and Alice Gosti. Currently: Kedian is a member of the 2019-2021 Soho Rep Writer / Director Lab and performs the role of Major in minor theater’s Marie It’s Time (HERE Arts Center). Recent directing work: A Bone to Pick (Brunch Theatre), Venus in Gemini (Exponential Festival), *Chefs Kiss* (FEAST/Your Uncle Richard), and Fantasy (No Theme Festival). Recent assisting work: minor theater’s Pathetic (Abrons Art Center) and Andrew Butler’s Rags Parkland Sings Songs of the Future (Ars Nova). Their dearly departed theater company Church of the Millennials presented work at Ars Nova Makers Lab, BAX Upstart Festival, and IRT. Kedian is a proud trans gnc alumnus of Dan Fishback’s NEEDING IT class at BAX.  they/them

Dara Malina is a director of theatre, performance, opera and film. She often makes politically-driven, art-forward, collaboratively-created or playwright-driven performance, and reinvents classic works while investigating avant-garde movements through a contemporary feminist lens. Currently, she is continuing development on an opera adaptation of Clarice Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H. (Mabou Mines RAP 2019) with composer Lacy Rose. In 2020, she received a grant with playwright Alexis Roblan from the NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre to premiere Roblan’s play Samuel, which they plan to produce in 2021. Recent work: Measure for Measure (LIU-Post), Machinal (Pace), Lacy Rose & The Starling Quartet (HERE). MFA, Columbia University School of the Arts. Member: Ensemble Studio Theatre, New Georges Jam.  she/her

Rebecca Martinez is a director, choreographer, and ensemble member of Sojourn Theatre and the BOLD Associate Artistic Director of WP Theater. Recent and upcomingprojects: The Nourish Project (WP Theater), Sanctuary – A Soundwalk (Working Theater) Pandemic Fight (Theatre for One: Here We Are – New York Times Critics Pick), I Am My Own Wife (Long Wharf Theatre); Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis), Miss You Like Hell (Baltimore Center Stage). Member of: Sol Project Collective, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, INTAR’s Unit52, SDCF Observer, Latinx Theatre Commons Advisory Committee, 2019 Audrey Resident, New Georges Affiliated Artist, 2018-2020 WP Lab, 2017 Drama League Directing Fellow, Member of SDC.  she/her

Eli Nixon builds portals and gives guided tours to places that don’t yet exist. They are a settler-descended transqueer clown, a cardboard constructionist, and a maker of plays, puppets, pageants, parades & low-tech public spectaculah. Eli collaborates with artists, activists, schools, mental health and recovery centers, libraries and the more-than-human world to expand imaginative capacity and build muscles for collective liberation. They are in the midst of parenting an 11-year-old human, proposing a new holiday in homage to horseshoe crabs, reveling in primordial naturedrag, and supporting movements for abolition, reparations, and land return. They’re a former New Georges Audrey Resident (with Rebecca Martinez), part of artEquity’s 2019 cohort, Company One’s 2019 PlayLab Unit, and a member of The 3^rd Thing Press’ 2021 author cohort.  they/them

Jolene Noelle is an NYC-based dramaturg with Colorado roots, specializing in developing and generating new work through physical, collaborative, and research-fueled means. She has been investigating the efficacy and application of the horror genre on stage, writing and producing a number of horror works, including co-founding Traumaturgy Productions and directing the company’s newest plays Remains, Sunset Park, and Trypophobia. Major projects include Associate Producer on the feature film The Subject, written by Chisa Hutchinson, directed by Lanie Zipoy, starring Jason Biggs and Aunjanue Ellis; Dramaturg on Wendy, Peter, Peter, Wendy written by Joshua Conkel for Single Carrot Theatre; Story Consultancy on the award-winning webseries Tuesday Nights; Associate Director and Dramaturg on Emmy award-winning comedian Ted Greenberg’s one-man show ACE (Philadelphia, NYC). Program Director: Theaterlab. Grant Writer: Rattlestick. MFA: Columbia University.  she/her

Ruth Tang is a playwright and poet. They are a 2020/21 New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellow and a member of the Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers’ Group 2020-21. Their past work includes FUTURE WIFE: Party in A Google Sheet (Corkscrew Festival 4.0), Bad Chinese (Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival, 2018), and Building A Character (Wild Rice Singapore, director: Mei Ann Teo, 2018). MFA: The New School for Drama.

Ashley Olivea Teague is the recipient of an Embark Fellowship Award for Social Innovation in Entrepreneurship and founder of Notch Theatre Company, which creates community-responsive theatre to amplify local stories and support grassroots efforts on a national scale. Teague is a participating partner on Remember2019 in the Arkansas Delta, and a co-creator of FIT–a play that partners with the Developmental Disability Community. She is also a partner on Wild Home, which takes an odyssey across America, collaborating with rural towns significantly pressured by fossil fuel development to magnify stories about wilderness areas under threat and the people who depend on them. Most recently she won a residency with coLAb Arts to document testimonies and create original theatre pieces with the diverse refugee communities of RCHP-AHC.  she/her

Kat Yen is a Chinese/Indigenous Taiwanese-American theater artist who has directed at Ars Nova, NYTW, Cherry Lane, Alvin Ailey Theater, EST, Bushwick Starr, JACK, New Ohio, INTAR, Harvard/A.R.T., The Flea, HERE Arts, The Wild Project, Poetic Theater Productions, Rising Circle, Yangtze Repertory, LAByrinth Theater, New Georges, Columbia University, N.Y.U. and TFNC amongst others. Recent productions include Two Mile Hollow, Usual Girls, Fade, Othello, Mr. Burns A Post-Apocalyptic Play, and References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot. She is an alumnus of Lincoln Center Directors Lab, a former Resident Director at The Flea Theater, the 2016-2017 Van Lier Directing Fellow at Second Stage and the former Co-Artistic Director of Spookfish Theatre Company. She is also currently a teaching artist at Stella Adler and LAByrinth. MFA: Yale School of Drama. she/her

In community (left to right, Lindsay, Bleu, Charly):

Bleu Beckford-Burrell is a first-generation Jamaican-American actor/playwright. Born and raised in New York City, she works for non-profit organizations where she teaches acting to teens, as well as write and direct plays. Her plays include: P.S.365 (2019 O’Neill Finalist) showcased at EST (Youngblood Workshop Series) and The National Black Theatre (Keep the Soul Alive reading series); Lyons Pride (2020 Burman New Play Award Finalist, 2019 The Kilroy’s Honorable Mention, and Yale Drama Series Award Runner-up, 2018 BAPF, Princess Grace Award Finalist) showcased at Playwrights Realm (Ink’d Festival of New Plays) and EST (Bloodwork Reading Series); La Race (2020 Normal Ave Finalist and Theatre503 International Playwright Award, O’Neill, BAPF Semi-finalist) up-coming showcases at Faultline Theatre (Irons in the Fire) and Page73 (Virtual Residency). She is Page73 Fellow (2021), The Playwrights Realm Fellow (2018), PWC New Voices Fellowship (2018, Finalist), NYTW/2050 Fellowship (2019, Finalist) as well as an I73 playwright (2020), Colt Coeur resident (2021), PWC Core Writer (2020, Finalist), WP Lab (2020, Finalist), Working Farm (2019, Semi-Finalist), et cet. She received the Playwrights Horizons Jody Falco & Jeffrey Steinman Commission for Emerging Playwrights (2020) and has been nominated for South Coast Repertory, Elizabeth George Emerging Writer Commission (2021). M.F.A. Rutgers University.

Lindsay Joelle is a playwright, librettist, and emerging TV writer drawn to stories of outsiders, rebels, and the un-assimilated. Plays include The Messengers (Audible Theatre), TRAYF (Theater J, New Repertory Theatre), and The Garbologists (City Theatre –  upcoming). She has received an Audible Emerging Playwright commission, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Foundation Science & Technology commission, Vital Theatre commission, National New Play Network grant, Rita Goldberg MFA Playwriting Prize, and has developed work with City Theatre, Asolo Rep, Playwrights Foundation, PlayPenn, Great Plains Theatre Conference, New Georges, Nashville Repertory Theatre’s Ingram New Works Lab, and Curious Theatre (NNPN Writer in Residence). Alumna of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, Columbia University (BA), and CUNY/Hunter (MFA). she/her

Charly Evon Simpson is a playwright and TV writer. Her plays include Behind the Sheet, Jump, form of a girl unknown, it’s not a trip it’s a journey, and more.  Her work has been seen and/or developed with Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Lark, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Salt Lake Acting Company, The Fire This Time Festival, and others. She’s a recipient of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award from the Vineyard Theatre and the Lanford Wilson Award from the Dramatists Guild. She’s working on commissions from MTC/Sloan, Cleveland Play House, South Coast Repertory, and The New Group. Charly’s a core writer at the Playwrights’ Center and is in the incoming class of residents at New Dramatists. BA: Brown. MSt: Oxford. MFA: Hunter.

On sabbatical (left to right, Miranda, Taylor):

Miranda Haymon is a Princess Grace Award/Honoraria-winning writer, director, and deviser of performance. Recent projects include Really, Really Gorgeous (The Tank), Everybody (Sarah Lawrence College), In the Penal Colony (Next Door @ NYTW, The Tank) and Mondo Tragic (National Black Theater). She is a Resident Director at Roundabout Theatre Company and The Tank, a 2020/22 WP Lab Member, a 2020/22 DTWG Member at The Public Theater, a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a Space on Ryder Farm 2019 Creative Resident, member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and the Wingspace Mentorship Program. Miranda is a 2019/20 New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Directing Fellow, a Manhattan Theatre Club Directing Fellow, and a former Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow at Arena Stage. BA Wesleyan University. Upcoming: Exception to the Rule (Roundabout Underground).

Taylor Reynolds is a New York-based director from Chicago and one of the Producing Artistic Leaders of OBIE-winning The Movement Theatre Company. She has worked as a director, assistant, and collaborator with companies including Clubbed Thumb, Page 73, Baltimore Center Stage, Signature Theatre Company, Ars Nova, MCC, and The 24 Hour Plays. Selected directing credits: Tambo & Bones (upcoming at Playwrights Horizons/CTG), Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally (Baltimore Center Stage/Playwrights Realm), Tough (AADA), Plano (Clubbed Thumb, Drama Desk nom for Best Director), Songs About Trains (Radical Evolution), Allond(r)a (New Georges Audrey Residency), Think Before You Holla (creator/deviser). She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist, 2017-2018 Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab alum, and member of SDC. BFA, Carnegie Mellon University.